Kobresia pygmaea meadows as disclimax communities in the same geographic and climatic environments in Qinghai–Tibet Plateau, China

作者：Lin Li, Guangmin Cao, Xingliang Xu, Fawei Zhang, Junjie Huang, Bo Fan, Bencuo Li, Yikang Li · 发表于：Journal of Plant Ecology · 年份：2023 · DOI：10.1093/jpe/rtad010 · 被引用次数：2 · 研究领域：Ecology and Vegetation Dynamics Studies、Rangeland Management and Livestock Ecology、Ecosystem dynamics and resilience

Abstract Kobresia meadows are the main pastures for animal husbandry on the Qinghai–Tibet Plateau, and may represent alternative steady states associated with different grazing intensities. The ability of other plant communities to succeed these meadows remains unclear. In this study, the historical data of plant communities were analyzed in terms of the soil profile, and the present characteristics were identified by investigating their plant communities. Four types of steady states were identified, corresponding to grazing intensities of >11, 8–11, 5.5–8 and <5.5 sheep/ha. Drought alpine swamp meadows and shrub meadows could succeed to K. pygmaea meadows and K. humilis meadows under overgrazing, and their total biomass and edible biomass (estimated by Gramineae and Cyperaceae) decreased with increasing grazing intensity. The regime shift of the states occurred at a grazing intensity of 8–11 sheep/ha. This value thus represented the threshold of significant change in the production and ecological service function in the Kobresia meadow succession process. In general, increasing grazing intensities can adversely affect the service ability of meadows for livestock production and ecosystem stabilization. Our results revealed the potential degraded succession process of the alpine Kobresia meadow and the succession direction in the restoration process of degraded meadows. Additionally, this study provided a theoretical basis for evaluating the fitness between the l...